INDIA: Hill Women Form Cooperative, Turn Entrepreneurs

Women in Uttarkashi district of the hill state of Uttarakhand in India, traditionally sidelined from the developmental processes, are forming their own cooperative and producing processed food items, giving big multinational brands a run for their money in local markets.

MALI: Small Farmers in the Carbon Market

Mohamed Abd Khibé is a caretaker at the acacia nursery in Dialoubé village, part of a project to sequester carbon in trees while simultaneously improving farmers' livelihoods.

ZIMBABWE: Training Teachers to Cope with HIV-positive Students

Eleven-year-old Memory’s grandmother wanted her to drop out of school because she is not going to live long enough to complete her studies. And the ridicule and stigma Memory endures at school because of her HIV status does not make her education seem worthwhile. Especially since this ridicule comes from her teacher.

MIDEAST: Turkey Going Its Own Way

The recent diplomatic crisis between Turkey and Israel has raised questions about the future of relations between the two closest allies of the United States in the region and the direction of the markedly independent foreign policy agenda that Turkey has pursued in recent years.

MIDEAST: Israel Cannot be Sultan

A bizarre diplomatic incident - even by the Byzantine-like standards of the old near East - has threatened already strained relations between Israel and Turkey.

ZAMBIA: Police Breaking the Law to Prevent Crime

Juniper Mwale was attending a funeral in another town when her husband jumped bail and fled the country. Despite not being aware of her husband's escape, police tracked her down and detained her illegally in an effort to force her spouse home.

U.S.: Community in Crisis Looks to its Agricultural Roots

Renowned for its historic Native American pueblo, cultural ties to Spain, bohemian artists, and world-class ski resort, Taos is also one of the many communities in the U.S. facing food insecurity.

HAITI: Agencies Scramble to Avert Worse Humanitarian Disaster

The enormous relief effort being mounted in Haiti since a 7.0-magnitude earthquake leveled most of Port-au-Prince is facing a host of difficulties, including bottlenecks at the main airport and lack of heavy equipment to clear debris from streets and roads, aid officials say.

INDIA: Protests Overshadow Communist State’s Chemical Hub Plans

An ambitious plan to establish a chemical industry complex in an ecologically fragile coastal zone of India’s eastern state, West Bengal, has snowballed into a debate, with the ruling communists facing resistance from environmental groups and political rivals over the project.

/CORRECTED REPEAT*/MIDEAST: Israel Declares War on Peace NGOs

One year after the devastating attack on Hamas in Gaza a new wave of reports castigating Israel for war crimes has emerged.

DEVELOPMENT: EU Aid to be Used for Fingerprinting

Aid traditionally reserved for keeping victims of war and disasters alive may now be used for security-related projects such as the fingerprinting of refugees, European Union officials have decided.

DEVELOPMENT-CAMBODIA: Minority Languages Face Extinction

One of Cambodia’s oldest languages – S’aoch – appears headed for extinction in the next decade. Other languages spoken by its minority people are lining up to take the place of the 6,000-year-old language in the most endangered category.

COTE D’IVOIRE: Elections Under Threat Again

Preparations for presidential elections scheduled for the end of February or the beginning of March - elections which have already been postponed numerous times since 2005 - have again reached an impasse in Côte d'Ivoire.

POLITICS: U.S. Citizens View Obama as Strong on Security

Opinion polls by two major U.S. television networks show that the majority of the country's citizens have faith in President Barack Obama's ability to protect them from "future acts of terrorism".

U.S.: World’s Most Controversial Prison Enters Ninth Year

As the world marked the beginning of the ninth year of detention at the U.S. Navy base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba on Monday, a leading legal advocacy group filed suit against the Library of Congress for firing Guantanamo's former chief prosecutor for writing articles criticising the use of military commissions to try suspected terrorists.

ZIMBABWE: Constitutional Reform Resumes

Months of delays may prove to have strengthened the process of producing a new constitution for Zimbabwe. When a 65-day public consultation finally begins, citizens will be primed and ready.

MIDEAST: Israel Cool to New U.S. Pressure

In the past, whenever there was even a semblance of pressure from Washington on Israel, nerves in Jerusalem went all a-jangle.

RIGHTS-PAKISTAN: Vestiges of War, Hopes for Peace

"We aren’t going to be browbeaten by acts of cowardice and would continue exposing Taliban and (other) militants," said an angry Shamim Shahid, president of the Peshawar Press Club (PPC).

Ecobreves – MEXICO: Poultry Farmers Promote Certification

Poultry farmers in the Mexico City area want to organize under a system that allows them to certify their production, following models that exist for sectors like corn and sugarcane farmers.

Ecobreves – BRAZIL: Making Use of E-Waste

The University of São Paulo has begun to recycle electronic waste, creating a center, known as CEDIR, which has started in-house with the university's own obsolete devices of information technology.

Ecobreves – ARGENTINA: Complaints Against Dakar Rally

An environmental group from the central Argentine province of Córdoba has charged that no environmental impact studies were conducted for the 2010 Dakar Rally under way in Argentina and neighboring Chile.